ভূমিকম্প বিষয়ে কিছু কথা - দয়া করে অনুবাদ করেন:

"So, having some experience in these matters, I would like to make a few comments about earthquakes:

A. If you can run outside, it's not much of an earthquake and therefore your house isn't likely to fall down. In a real earthquake, the walls (and the floors connecting them) will be moving back and forth a meter or more several times a second making 'running' an unlikely event.

B. Even if the quake is not be strong enough to collapse the building and you can run outside, it might be strong enough to loosen the heavy stone tiles on your lovely J-style house just in time to slide off and kill you as you come out the door.

C. While being naked in the tub when the quake hits--especially if it's not mid-summer--is going to be inconvenient, in general the bathroom is a good place to be. The toilet and bathtub may well have the strength to provide you a nice air pocket where you can await the rescue crews. That might take a week or more so the toilet water will come in handy and be much nicer to drink than your own urine.

D. In general, the street is the most dangerous place to be during an earthquake, at least in Japan, because most multi-story buildings that fall will do so because the first floor 'parallelogramed.' Due to the dense construction in Japan, the only place a collapsing building can go is into the street. And if building doesn't get you, then maybe one of those ubiquitous block walls running along most residential streets will. (Yes, this means living in a first floor apartment is not really a very good idea.)

E. If everyone in Tokyo runs into the street at once (after the quake), there's going to be a crush of people that will set records. Good luck getting home! It seems having a 30-day food cache at home isn't enough. Companies need to lay in a store, too.

F. There are many old buildings in Japan that will fall in 'The Big One.' Japan has revised its building codes twice in recent decades--in '71 and '81. Here's the general rule-of-thumb on what will happen to a building in The Big One: (1) if built before '71, it will collapse, (2) If built between '71 and '81, it will have extensive damage and probably need to be torn down, and (3) if built after '81, it will have damage, but be repairable.

(Did you ask the construction date before signing that lease? Maybe you should!)

G. Even if your building was built after '81, you can still be injured or die. For example, if you keep your tower computer or TV is on the edge of your desk just next to the bed, there is a chance it will land on your head when it bounces off the desk. Or that big wardrobe where you keep your clothes may fall on you.

H. Comparing a quake of Magnitude X in one area with a Magnitude X quake somewhere else is meaningless. In fact, paying attention to magnitude ratings at all is of very little value because there is only a slight relationship between magnitude and damage. Besides the distance from the epicenter, you also have to consider the depth of the quake. An M7.5 at 20 km depth might cause only slight damage at the surface while an M7.5 at 5 km depth kills thousands. This is why the Japanese have developed the 'Shindo' scale which gives a rating for the motion at the surface. Shindo ratings actually mean something and are the ones flashed on the TV screen of NHK, etc., after every quake in Japan.

Note to Japan Today editors: Your articles will be much more informative if you report the Shindo numbers and and leave the meaningless magnitude numbers out of it.

Hope this helps someone."